As is known in the art, aircrafts, missiles, satellites and other aerial platforms often utilize an antenna to establish communication links with a ground-based platform (e.g., a deployment platform). Then, such antennas provide an antenna beam generally directed toward its launch point, meaning significant steering from broadside.
As is also known, there is a trend to provide such antennas with increasingly wider bandwidth, higher gain while at the same time being “flush mounted” to a surface of the aerial platform (e.g., the missile “skin”) and packaged in a limited volume. The benefits of a flush mounted and volume-limited antenna include minimizing its aerodynamic effect and reducing or ideally minimizing mass impact (that is, a smaller antenna may weigh less and consequently reduce the overall weight of the missile or aircraft or other aerial platform on which it is mounted).